THE BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING

Saturday, August 31, 2013

A FACE IN A BILLION: FACEBOOK TO INCLUDE PROFILE PIX IN FACIAL RECOGNITION DATABASE

Edited time: August 30, 2013

AFP Photo / Manjunath Kiran

Facebook says it will expand its facial recognition
database to include over 1 billion extra faces as it incorporates users’
profile pictures into its database, thereby increasing the scope of its
existing, highly controversial technology.
The world’s largest social network made the announcement Thursday
in an update to its data use policy. Facebook’s
“Tag Suggest” feature already automatically recognizes “friend”
faces in photo uploads to speed up the process of tagging
friends, but the new adaptation will also use the facial
recognition technology to identify its own users’ profile
pictures.

“Our goal is to facilitate tagging so that people know when
there are photos of them on our service,” Erin Egan,
Facebook’s chief privacy officer, told Reuters, adding that the
change would give users better control over their information.

Egan added that there would be an “opt out” feature, meaning that
somebody’s photograph could be excluded from the facial
recognition database.

The practice has already raised regulatory concerns in Europe,
meaning Facebook users there will not be affected by the change –
it is only for US users. Facebook was persuaded to disable its
facial recognition technology across Europe earlier this year,
after an investigation by privacy authorities in Germany and
Ireland.

“Can I say that we will never use facial recognition
technology for any other purposes? Absolutely not,” Egan
said. “If we decided to use it in different ways we will
continue to provide people [with] transparency about that and we
will continue to provide control.”

Reuters / Dado Ruvic

Critics said that there has also been little attempt in the new
update to provide greater clarity as to policies. “The company
is also deliberately deleting information about specific privacy
controls,” noted the New York Times, pointing out that a
direct path to the possibility of opting out of endorsing adverts
on friends’ pages would no longer be on the privacy page.

The old privacy policy informed users: “You can use your
privacy settings to limit how your name and profile picture may
be associated with commercial, sponsored, or related content
(such as a brand you like) served or enhanced by us.”
However, the changed wording assumes permission for name,
profile picture and content to be used in connection with
commercial content.
"We are proposing this update as part of a settlement in a
court case relating to advertising," Egan said in a statement
in regards to changes in commercial use.
While not specifying which court case, it was revealed on
Wednesday that Facebook will pay out $20
million in compensation to users who had their personal
information shared on the website. Details of users appeared in
the “sponsored stories” advertisements without their permission.
Facebook and Google (Google Plus uses similar technology) both
insist that they are not participants in any program that allows
the US government direct access to their computer servers, and
only supply personal information upon specific request and
following a review.

The update to Facebook’s technology comes as public scrutiny
grows of corporate use of private data, and its sharing with
governments, following NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s
revelations of mass US electronic surveillance in June. For seven
years, the National Security Agency has been using a warrantless
web surveillance system, PRISM, with a near-limitless ability to
spy on anyone’s phone calls, e-mails, video chats, search history
and more.

According to the documents leaked by Snowden, Internet giants
such as Google, Apple and Facebook have been complicit in the
scheme, providing the NSA with access to users' data.

AS AN IMPORTANT MEMBER OF THE GLOBALINDEPENDENT MEDIACOMMUNITY, MIKIVERSE POLITICSHONOURABLY REQUESTS YOUR HELP TO
KEEP YOUR NEWS, DIVERSE,AND FREE OF CORPORATE, GOVERNMENT SPIN AND CONTROL. FOR MORE INFO ON HOW YOU MAY ASSIST, PLEASE CONTACT: themikiverse@gmail.com